Great Expectations is the result of the working out of an idea which came to Dickens after writing A Tale of Two Cities. He wished to write a story that would exhibit, side by side, both the pleasantness and unpleasantness of life.

It is again a first person story, again with a boy hero — but Pip’s inner development is not neglected. Dickens has exhibited, very successfully, how easily good fortune may pervert a good character, and yet how that character proves itself in the end.